How to Reglue a Table Tennis Rubber

This is Episode 005 of the Ask a Table Tennis Coach podcast. Today’s question comes from Mau and is all about how to reglue a table tennis rubber.

Mau asks…

“One of my table tennis rubbers has started peeling off from my blade. I’m planning on sticking it back down with super glue, is this a good idea or do you recommend special type of glue for bats?”

Okay this is another question I get asked a lot when people want to stick down bits that are peeling off with super glue. First thing you need to work out is what kind of problem you got.

If you have a cheap bat then you might actually have the top sheet of rubber coming away from the sponge. If that’s happened there is nothing you can do, you need to go and get yourself a new bat.

If you have got a decent bat and it’s the top sheet and sponge together that’s coming away from the blade that is just something that happens from time to time. Maybe it was glued badly in the first place or perhaps you caught it on the table when you were playing a short shot and it came loose and peeled back a bit, you just need to re-glue that.

Now the thing is that lots of people just want  to maybe squeeze a little bit of super glue into the bit that’s flopping off and then press it down and hope everything’s going to be okay again. Please don’t do that, it’s not the way to do it. The glue holding the rubber to the blade is actually important because that’s connecting the bat together. So if you’ve got bits of your bat that don’t have any glue and a loose bit of rubber that’s sitting on top of the blade then that part of your bats gonna be completely dead and it wont play well at all.

Lets say your bat starts doing this, and the rubber starts peeling off. Do really need to remove the whole rubber, glue it properly, glue the blade, wait for it to dry then stick it back down again? The answer is yes, and you will need to use a proper glue (proper table tennis glue), so don’t go gluing it on with super glue because it will come off again and maybe damage your blade.

I will recommend that you go to a specialist or maybe to table tennis retailer, you can find them all online. Mega Spin and Table Tennis Eleven I really like. Just buy a small table tennis glue you get a few years out of that. Then you’re gonna need to head to YouTube and find a video showing you how to glue a table tennis rubbers properly. It might seems a little bit intimidating at first but if you kind of follow these steps and you do what it says its not that difficult.

I have a video of myself called ‘How to Build Your Own Table Tennis Bat‘ and that is basically just gluing and cutting the rubbers. If its just sticking one that’s just been peeling off you’re not going to worry about the cutting its just take it off gluing it, wait for it to dry and stick it back down. Have a look at that video ‘How to Build your own Table Tennis Bat‘ on YouTube. Its a few years old now but it has a lot of views and I think that’s how peoplein that situation replace their rubber. So don’t just try and squeeze a bit in, do it properly place the rubber glue it and then stick it back down again.

Great, thanks for the question Mau.

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